


Nysgjerrige Nils Eide

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9331739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: I hope you enjoy this silly tale of six-year-old Sigrun Eide, who sometimes needs two (or more) generals to handle her.I am informed by the sages at Wikipedia that "Nysgjerrige Nils" is the name for Curious George in the Norwegian translation of H.A. & Margret Rey's beloved books.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lazy8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazy8/gifts).



> Posted as part of the Silent Night Exchange 2017.  
> The brief I chose: "Relationship: The Generals Eide & Sigrun Eide: From what few interactions they've had thus far, I got the impression that Sigrun has a good relationship with her parents... but they also dealt with a whole lot of exasperation when she was a kid, and for that matter when she was an adult. So, I want Eide family moments! Silly family moments! Touching family moments! Moments where Sigrun's parents wanted to tear their hair out! Moments where they all help each other through the more difficult times! Honestly, there's not many ways you could go wrong here."  
> 

"SIGRUN!" The word echoed off the cliffs above Dalsnes. Birds took off from the trees, sheep ran bleating along the fence lines on the hillsides, the Grade A cats sprang to attention. Again the word rang out. The townspeople in Dalsnes gave knowing looks to each other. Parents of young children checked on the whereabouts of their offspring.

In the silence that followed the echoes of her shouting, General Solveig Eide listened carefully. A small rock fell off the cliff face, bounced off the shelf below it, and crashed into the trees behind the armaments workshop. _So._ Solveig's eyes scanned upward on the cliff face, getting narrower the higher she tracked. There was one stand of long grass not moving in time to the gusts off the fjord, just below the ridgeline. She sighed, then put two fingers up to her mouth and whistled, one long rising blast and two short blasts.

A head appeared above the ridgeline, the low sun highlighting the red hair. Solveig raised her left fist over her head, made a tight circle with the arm, then pointed at the clump of long grass. General Asbjørn Eide quietly stepped to the edge of the ridgeline where Solveig had pointed and carefully peered over the rocks to the grass below. He then stepped back, raised his own left fist, and pumped it twice. As Asbjørn moved along the ridgeline to the track that would take him close to the target position, Solveig crossed quickly to the armaments workshop.

Asbjørn moved into position, then sprang out from behind the rocks and onto the grassy shelf where his quarry was hiding, but lost his footing and slid perilously close to the edge of the shelf. As he recovered himself, he heard giggling.

"PAPPA! YOU FOUND ME!" Six-year-old Sigrun Eide popped up from behind the clump of grass, bits of grass and pine needles stuck in her bright red hair. There was a hole and small trail of blood in the knee of her pants – her good pants, the ones for special occasions like tonight's ceremony. Solveig was not going to like this, Asbjørn thought ruefully, but as usual, he couldn’t resist his daughter's bright smile (currently missing both front teeth) and dancing violet eyes as she bobbed up and down with glee.

Sighing, he got up from the ground where he'd slid, and brushed himself off. Oh great, now he had mud on _his_ good pants. This after Solveig had _told_ him he should wait until the last minute to change clothes. Now they were both in for a scolding. "Why didn't you answer when Mamma called you, puppy?," Asbjørn asked her. Sigrun giggled again, and Asbjørn noticed the splash of yellow on the ground. He bent over and picked up the banana peel he'd slipped on. "SiiigggRUUN," he began, "where did you get this?" The new shipment of fruit from Iceland was supposed to be for tonight.

Sigrun's eyes widened. "PAPPA, the MAN WITH the YELLOW HAT GAVE it to me!"

Asbjørn regarded his daughter sternly. "SigRUN, the Man with the Yellow Hat is in your Nysgjerrige Nils book. Tell me the truth, now, did you steal this?"

Sigrun shook her head violently from side to side, "NO, PAPPA, I DIDN'T STEAL IT! IT WAS A PRESENT FROM THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW HAT!" She put her hands on her hips. "I didn't steal it," she repeated resolutely.

"Would you say that to Grandma Berit?" Many times had he pointed out the portrait hanging on the wall of the dining hall of his great-great grandmother Berit Eide to Sigrun. Sigrun had already said she wanted to be like her.

"Yes," Sigrun replied. She raised her pointed chin and glared at him through narrowed eyes.

Sigrun looked just like Solveig at this moment, and Asbjørn couldn't stay annoyed with her. "Come on, we've got to go get cleaned up." He turned to go.

"PAPPA, CARRY ME!" Asbjørn turned around to see Sigrun holding out her arms to him, and froze.

"No." All trace of indulgence disappeared from General Eide's face. "You got up here, you get yourself down. That's the rules." He turned and scrambled down to the trail without a backward glance. At least, not a backward glance that he allowed Sigrun to see.

By the time he reached the shadows at the bottom of the cliff face, Sigrun had scrambled down to where she could reach a bough of a pine tree, had leapt onto it and had already clambered down to where Solveig awaited her wayward daughter behind the armaments workshop. Asbjørn could hear Solveig scolding Sigrun over her torn and bloodied state. Then Solveig turned around and spied him with muddied pants, and he felt six years old himself under her withering glare.

As she scrubbed down the wriggling Sigrun, Solveig decreed that as his punishment, Asbjørn was on duty to dress Sigrun and look after her at the evening's ceremony. "And, you get to make her wear a _dress_ this time, since her pants are ruined." He tried to protest that it wasn't his fault she had done that, but Solveig had That Look on her face, the one she wore in the field when giving orders, That Look that propelled her to a General rank at a preposterously young age. He himself had only been promoted just last year. She deposited the dripping wet naked girl on the floor and threw a towel at Asbjørn. Sigrun promptly took off running, and he was obliged to scramble to scoop her up onto the arm that had the towel before she could reach the door.

Eventually Asbjørn reached the dining hall, which had been thoroughly scrubbed and with every candle in every sconce lit, for the annual investiture of the newly promoted officers. General Trond Andersen himself would be there to present the rank awards. He was making slow progress with Sigrun tucked under his arm, as he had to stop every few steps to retrieve the sweet knitted bonnet that Sigrun kept tearing off her head and throwing on the ground. "Remember, puppy, you need to use your manners. _(Stop kicking!)_ You need to use _(Leave it ON!)_ your indoor _(Ow, cut that out!)_ your indoor voice. _(Hat! On! NOW!)_ Sigrun, are you listening to me? I'm warning you," and he set her down just outside the dining hall. "Remember, you're a Viking."

Sigrun stopped wriggling and looked at him solemnly. Asbjørn sighed inwardly, thankful that at least that reminder still worked. "Yes, Pappa," she nodded. He held out his hand, and they entered the hall hand-in-hand. "I should have a sword, though," she said as they came through the front door.

Asbjørn saw as they went inside that Solveig was already seated at the top table, wearing her wolfskin capelet. She raised one eyebrow and gave a small nod of approval that Sigrun looked smartly turned out in her bunad, even if her bonnet was askew. Trond Andersen was seated next to her, his bald head covered by a light tan elkskin hat, looking down his nose through his pince-nez at the new officers standing in line below, waiting for the general's signal to be seated.

Suddenly Sigrun slipped from Asbjørn's grasp and ran up to the top table. To his mortification, she ran up to General Andersen and pointed at him. "PAPPA, IT'S THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW HAT!" She bobbed up and down, with her gap-toothed smile and her hat missing again.

General Andersen peered down at Sigrun even as Asbjørn jogged up and Solveig rose to restrain their daughter. "Well well, if it isn't Nysgjerrige Nils," he said through a tight smile, "Did you enjoy that banana, little climbing monkey?"

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, slipping on a banana peel is still a thing in Y64.  
> Sigrun never said she hated all books, and my headcanon is that she would like those.


End file.
